Certain types of electronic equipment generate considerable heat during operation. Cooling such equipment can be problematic, particularly when a number of devices are crowded together in a compact space. The case of data centers is illustrative. Certain types of data processing equipment produce a large amount of heat in a small form factor. For example, blade servers have multiple heat producing CPUs on boards that slide into a compact backplane chassis.
Currently, the typical approach to cooling such equipment in a data center is via general air conditioning of the data center room using a computer room air conditioning or “CRAC” unit. However, this is an inefficient means to address hotspots associated with devices, as noted above, that generate significant heat. In particular, these devices typically blow cool air into the plenum space beneath the data center floor. The cool air is then drawn up through the data center where heat is extracted from the equipment via convection. Even if the cooling capacity of such a system is increased, e.g., by increasing the volume of air passed through the data center or further cooling the air, such systems are only marginally efficient at addressing such hotspots.
An alternative is water cooling systems that use water or another fluid coolant. Water cooling was used extensively in data centers in the 1960s through the 1980s, especially data centers employing mainframe computers. Theoretically, such water cooling, or cooling using another coolant, could be employed in modern data centers, and some development effort has been initiated in this regard. However, modern data centers typically employ many network devices and many other data processing peripherals. The result has been an explosion in the amount of data cabling, power conduits and fiber under the data center raised floor. All of this cabling complicates the plumbing that would be required for cooling using conventional coolants. Moreover, modern data centers may be frequently reconfigured to address changing needs. It will be appreciated that the initial data center configuration and any reconfiguration may be constrained by plumbing issues and could require specialized plumbing service providers in addition to the other service providers employed in such data center projects. In addition, it will be appreciated that any leakage of water from such cooling systems would be potentially hazardous to personnel and equipment.